Wilhelm Friedemann Bach (1710-1784) - Sinfonia a 6 (c.1740)
0Alles Gute zum Geburtstag Wilhelm Friedemann Bach! 🎁🎉
Composer: Wilhelm Friedemann Bach (1710-1784)
Work: Sinfonia (d-moll) â 2 Travers:, 2 Violini, Viola et Basso (c.1740), Fk 65
Performers: Akademie für Alte Musik Bеrlin; Stephen Mаi (conductor)
Sinfonia (d-moll) a 6 (c.1740)
1. Adagio 0:00
2. Fuga, allegro e forte 4:24
Painting: Pittore Napoletano del XVIII Secolo - Musici
HD image: https://flic.kr/p/2ph7ncY
Painting: Unknown (18th Century) - Wilhelm Friedemann Bach
HD image: https://flic.kr/p/24PWjho
Further info: https://rism.online/sources/1001013649
Listen free: No available
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Wilhelm Friedemann Bach
(Weimar, 22 November 1710 - Berlin, 1 July 1784)
German composer and organist. The eldest son of Johann Sebastian Bach, he received his earliest musical training from his father, later enrolling in the Thomasschule in Leipzig. In 1726 he was sent to Merseburg to study violin under Johann Gottlieb Graun, returning in 1729 to enroll in Leipzig University. There he studied mathematics, but in 1733 he was appointed organist at the Sophiakirche in Dresden. In 1746 he was appointed as organist at the Liebfraukirche in the Pietist city of Halle. Unfortunately, his relations with the town fathers and his cantor Georg Mittag were problematic, and he began to apply for other posts throughout Germany without success, although he was allowed in 1762 to style himself as Kapellmeister to the court of Hessen-Darmstadt even though he did not obtain the position. In 1764 he simply quit his position and began to support himself through private teaching, eventually leaving for Braunschweig in 1770 and subsequently for Berlin four years later. There, he continued to teach even though he was initially welcomed at the court of Anna Amalia, the sister of Frederick II of Prussia. His last years were spent in extreme poverty exacerbated by alcoholism. Although active as a composer, his reputation during his lifetime was primarily for his keyboard improvisation, no doubt due in part to the rigorous training provided by his father.
His music, however, is often characterized by a mixture of older styles (also inherited from his father) and a sense of harmonic and formal experimentation that often created extreme contrast and jarring dissonances. Not surprisingly, some of his earlier compositions were so close in style to those of his father that they were misattributed. He was a good teacher; his students include his brother Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Johann Gottlieb Goldberg, and Johann Nikolaus Forkel, with whom he also collaborated on that author’s biography of Johann Sebastian Bach. His music, cataloged according to F (Falck) or BR numbers, consists of 32 cantatas (two secular); an opera, Lausus und Lydie; two Masses and several Mass movements; a German Te Deum; several other smaller sacred settings; 15 keyboard sonatas; 18 works for musical clockwork; around 40 polonaises; 10 keyboard fantasies; some 40 or so miscellaneous works for the keyboard; 11 fugues/canons; three sonatas for two keyboards (one titled “concerto”); eight symphonies; seven concertos (five for keyboard, and one each for flute and two harpsichords); a sextet; nine flute duets; three viola duets; and five trio sonatas. The famous portrait by Wilhelm Weitsch is now known to portray his cousin.